Q: What are the principal kinds of prayer?

We are preparing some of our youth at St. B’s for confirmation and in so doing are working our way through the Catechism: An Outline of the Faith. As I was preparing last week I noticed the question referenced in the title. The Catechism reads as follows,

Notice something missing? Where is lament? If you are like me your first, generous thought is that it must be included under “intercession” or “petition.” But no, it isn’t in those definitions either.

Q. What are intercession and petition?

A. Intercession brings before God the needs of others; in petition, we present our own needs, that God’s will may be done.

Lament is far more than simply presenting “our own needs.” It is the full and full-throated expression of our pain, suffering, and desire for God’s attention and justice. It is so important to spiritual life that the majority of all Psalms are laments and of course the Book of Lamentations stands as a monument of honesty and anguish.

I have found that all of us, whether (but often especially) teens or retirees, need to be reminded that not only are we allowed to be honest with God, but it is an essential part of our own healing. We must confront and identify our complaint, our pain, address God as at least the witness to our suffering and call God to account, ask for deliverance, all as we declare our faith in God.

It is a sad reality that lament and lamentations are essentially ignored in western Christendom today. In the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary there is only one Sunday that includes the Book of Lamentations. Too often I have encountered Christians who find that such language seems to be lacking in faith. How dare we talk to God in this way! When I was doing my work on the Book of Lamentations I recall one scholar positing that the biblical poets were, in fact, expressing atheistic views as they complained and railed against God. Lament is quite the opposite! It is a firm and ferocious confession of faith. After all, why complain to a God that you don’t believe exists?

If we need any further convincing, remember Jesus’s last words (Matt. 27:46) are the opening words to Ps. 22. It is worth ending with the entirety of the Psalm.